By Andrew Bansal
Washington DC based progressive metal quintet Wings Denied began merely two years ago but with the release of their stellar debut full-length album ‘Mirrors For A Prince’ this year, they have taken a giant stride towards staking their claim as a force to be reckoned with in this genre. Hands down the finest prog metal album of 2014 thus far, ‘Mirrors For A Prince’ was recorded under the expert guidance of producer/engineer Jamie King, who has worked with the likes of Between The Buried And Me, Scale The Summit and Tesseract, and the five members of Wings Denied along with a few talented guest musicians combined to create one of the catchiest yet musically proficient albums of recent times. Wings Denied successfully completed a US tour in June, and a week or so after their fantastic performance at the free-of-cost Metal Monday show at the Down ‘N Out bar in downtown Los Angeles, I spoke to bassist Rob Moore to discuss the tour, the album and more. Enjoy the brief but insightful conversation below.
Rob, good to be talking to you for this interview. How has this US tour gone for you guys, specially California where you played your first ever shows, I believe?
It’s been really good! This is a pretty major tour for us and things have gone really well. California has been so great to us, it’s been lots of fun and it’s hard to leave!
I can imagine, man. So, before this tour you released your debut full-length album ‘Mirrors For A Prince’, and I must say it sounds fantastic. Ever since I saw you guys play that material live at the Down ‘N Out here in downtown LA, I’ve been listening to the album non-stop. For how long did you work on this set of tunes?
Thank you! The last time when we did a big tour, we were getting all these songs ready to go in the studio with Jamie King. We put a lot of work into it and after that it was very hard to wait to release it. It was one of those things were you have all this really great material but you have to take so many little steps to get it out there to the right people. It was hard not showing it off, but it’s been received really well, we’re happy with it and we love it. We’re really proud of it.
You mentioned Jamie King, who’s obviously worked with a few great bands. How did you get his services for your album?
He was actually really approachable, we sort of told him what we wanted to do and he straightaway wanted to be a part of it. He had a big influence on the record and was totally cool to work with. To get to work with somebody who’s done BTBAM and stuff like that, it was awesome. He really brought out the best in us.
That’s great. You also had a couple of guest musicians on the album, Joe Lester from Intronaut being one of them. What was it like working with him?
Yeah it was weird, because some of the guys in the band are really good friends with him. We just approached him and asked whether he wanted to do something on our record, and then it took us a while to figure out where we could put something he did. So we just gave him ‘Neant’, the doomiest song on the album, and it sounded great with what he did on it. It was very cool to have him be a part of it.
One thing that stands out in your tunes is, there’s an element of catchiness which sticks in the listener’s mind. How important do you think that is? There’s so many bands doing this modern prog metal style, and you obviously need something for people to remember.
Yeah, you’ve got to stand out somehow. I guess that element just came out naturally in us. That’s just our style!
How do you guys work on creating tunes? Is it a team effort or only some guys writing all the material?
Zach [Dreshler, guitar] usually comes up with a song and its structure, gives it to us and we put our parts on it, the vocals, the melodies and all that stuff. Then we come together and critique each other, and the best product comes out of it!
On the album, the final track ‘Six Years And A Day’ is 13 minutes long, a lot longer than any of the other songs on there. Was that like a conscious thing where you wanted to write a long song or is that how it just came out?
A bit of both. We wanted to have this epic, massive song, and it just naturally came out that way as well. That song is awesome, I love it and it’s so much fun to play live. We all smile at each other when we play that one and it’s probably our favorite song to play live.
You’re from Washington DC. How’s the musical atmosphere down there and how has it impacted your development?
Well, DC has so much going on, with lots of different kinds of music. I guess the biggest influence it has had on us is, it helped all of us accept each other’s different musical tastes. It helped us come together and be unique.
So there’s more of an open-mindedness in terms of people from different scenes coming together?
Yeah, it’s a very international place, very diverse, so you just get everything.
What plans do you have for the rest of the year and the near future?
We’ve already begun writing another album which will be worked on sometime in the future, and in the meanwhile hopefully we’ll get to play more shows to present material from the debut album, and have fun doing it!
Related:
1. Gig Review: Wings Denied, Andraus & Livin Alive Play ‘Metal Monday’ At Down & Out
2. Mid-Year 2014 Recap: Best Albums
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